New course: Troy: Beyond the Myth

CLAS-2811: Troy: Beyond the Myth
Prof. Emilia Oddo, Dept. of Classical Studies

The Trojan War, famous heroes against each other, astute decoys, tragic deaths, plotting, intrigue, and the gods in the midst of it. All these stories were celebrated in the poetry of Homer, forever remembered as one of the pillars of Greek literature, and were represented on pots and temples. Was it all fiction? Or did something really happen between the city of Troy and the ancient Greek world? Come and find out what archaeologists have discovered, who were the real Agamemnon and Menelaus, and how Homer saved the day.

New course: The Orléans Collection

The Orléans Collection:
Early modern collecting, the art market and the first museums
Spring 2018. M 3:30- 5:45        Professor Stephanie Porras and Vanessa Schmid, NOMA

This seminar investigates the formation, organization, display and dispersal of early modern art collections, using the magnificent art collection amassed by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1690-1723) as a paradigmatic example. The Orléans collection will be the subject of a landmark 2018 exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art to celebrate the city’s tri-centennial, curated by Vanessa Schmid, who will co-teach this course with Professor Porras. The seminar will study the formation and organization of early modern European aristocratic collections, most notably Italian aristocratic and merchant collections such as those amassed by the Medici and Gonzaga families; ambitious royal collectors like Rudolph II and Charles I; and French noble collections from the Valois courts onwards. Students will study the social networks of early modern collectors, reading inventories, travellers’ accounts and theoretical texts to analyze why patrons amassed art collections. The seminar also aims to help students develop an understanding of the increasing professionalism of the early modern art market, the rise of specialist art dealers and connoisseurial practices – particularly in the cities of Paris, Amsterdam and London. The sale of the Orléans collection intersected with the foundation of James Christies’ London auction house and the formation of the first public art museums in Europe. Finally, students will analyze and compare the politics of display and various levels of access to different aristocratic collections, with particular focus on the formation of the Western art historical canon, artists’ use of early modern collections, and the origins of the public museum in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Questions?         Email Stephanie Porras (sporras@tulane.edu)

Saffron by Teresa Cole

Thursday evening, October 26, 2017, Teresa Cole, artist and Professor of Art, will present a lecture titled, "Exchange," at the University of Richmond in conjunction with her solo exhibition, "Saffron," a large-scale installation of dyed, printed, and laser-cut Japanese paper that will cover the gallery walls. The exhibition at the Lora Robbins Gallery of Design from Nature, University of Richmond Museums, will be open from October 27 to December 8, 2017.

MFA Artist Talks

Please join the Newcomb Art Department for a series of Artist Talks by current MFA candidates.

Alumni News: Marisa Hershon

Marissa Hershon (BA, Art History, 2003) is happy to announce that the catalog she co-authored, Glass: Masterworks from the Chrysler Museum of Art, is now available on Amazon, with her essays highlighting American and European glass in the museum’s collection. 

Hershon, a Curatorial Assistant in Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston also is pleased to share that the exhibition, The Glamour and Romance of Oscar de la Renta, is on view at The MFAH from October 8, 2017 – January 28, 2018.

New Course: Spring 2018

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970.

Environmental Perspectives: An Interdisciplinary Approach
A New 360-Degree Course
CIRC 3600 - Spring 2018
Professors Michelle Foa, Tom Sherry, Rich Campanella, and Laura McKinney
 
In this introductory class, we will examine how people in different times and places have viewed their relationship to their environment and how a better understanding of this relationship can help us address current and future environmental challenges.  The course is co-taught by four professors in the Departments of Art History, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Sociology, and a Geographer in the School of Architecture in order to address environmental questions and challenges from a multidisciplinary perspective.  No previous course work in any of these disciplines is required.  The art history portion of the class will explore the history of artists’ engagement with the environment and how their work reflects broader economic, political, and social developments underway.  The part of the course taught by the biologist will analyze the threats to biological diversity arising from climate change and a variety of solutions that humans are devising to address these challenges, while the sociology portion of the class will evaluate the complex connections between nature and social systems.  The section taught by the geographer will consist entirely of field trips to sites throughout the city and region in order to examine the complex environmental past, present, and future of New Orleans.  This course, then, offers students a unique and exciting opportunity to explore our relationship to the environment from a variety of disciplinary points of view.

For more information, please contact Prof. Michelle Foa (mfoa@tulane.edu).

Newcomb Art in the New Wave

Charlie Tatum, left, talks with Maxwell Sandler, right, about his ceramic entry, Delilah, 2016. 
Sandler, a junior majoring in cell and molecular biology with a minor in studio art, was eager to have his piece reviewed by Tatum, editorial and communications manager for Pelican Bomb, an online arts publication, during the opening reception for the 2017 Undergraduate Juried Exhibition in Carroll Gallery.

[photo: Paula Burch-Celentano, Tulane New Wave, October 20, 2017]

Panel Discussion at Loyola

Gary Metz: Encountering the Landscape and a Photographic Tradition

Wednesday, October 18, 2017, 6:30 p.m., Miller 114, Loyola University

PANELISTS

Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, MFA, Gary Metz curator, Fordham University, New York, NY
Joseph Lawton, MFA, Gary Metz curator, Fordham University, New York, NY

Russell Lord, PhD, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, New Orleans Museum of Art
Benjamin Benus, PhD, Assistant Professor of Art History, Loyola University New Orleans
AnnieLaurie Erickson, MFA, Assistant Professor of Photography, Tulane University        

Presented in conjunction with the current exhibition: Gary Metz: Quaking Aspen: A Lyric Complaint

Collins C. Diboll Art Gallery, Loyola University New Orleans

September 25-December 15, 2017